Theresa Kulbaga: “Shutting down this committee sends a clear signal”

It is really disappointing, to me and to many of my colleagues, that Miami’s administration is making the decision to stop seeking and valuing input from faculty. [To the Provost:] You have amazing, smart, creative, hardworking faculty, and we want to work with you to build Miami’s future. But shutting down this committee sends a clear signal: we don’t care to hear from you, even via committee that is a longstanding part of Miami governance. Why wouldn’t you want to work with us instead?

“Imagine if administration responded to the opportunity to co-build a union contract by sitting down with us with open dialogue, and saying ‘hey, we value your ideas, let’s work together on this for the good of Miami.’”

[To the faculty:] I want everyone in this room to imagine for a moment if we were a university with an administration and Board of Trustees that valued and amplified faculty input and shared governance. Imagine if administration responded to the opportunity to co-build a union contract by sitting down with us with open dialogue, and saying “hey, we value your ideas, let’s work together on this for the good of Miami.”

[To the Provost:] Instead, one of your first actions is to use collective bargaining as an excuse to shut down a longstanding shared governance committee that seeks faculty feedback about our administrators. Shutting down opportunities to collaborate with faculty, to listen to our concerns and our ideas. It’s disappointing. It makes me sad. And it doesn’t have to be that way.